For every FTSE100 company site there are five fakes

A large number of UK's FTSE100 companies are wide open to cyber-attacks, after domain spoofing and corporate emails were discovered.

Threat intelligence platform provider Anomali reported on Wednesday that 81 of Financial Times Stock Exchange 100 companies have had potentially malicious domain registrations against them. That means cyber-criminals could create fake websites of those companies and trick people into giving them private information, including financial data.

The company also discovered that 5,275 employee email and clear text password combinations have been found on a 'number of sites' where they could easily be taken and either sold or abused.

“Cyber-crime is rising at an astonishing rate, and it’s now a board-level issue for businesses,” said Jamie Stone, VP of EMEA of Anomali.

“Nevertheless, the evidence gathered across our threat intelligence platforms demonstrates that some basic security measures are not being adopted or followed at some of the largest and most prominent companies in the UK. The results of the report should be a wake-up call for these organisations, highlighting just how vulnerable they are in ways they might not even have considered.”